Owl and Bear

On Going Paperless (Or Not)

I’ve been working on going paperless for about six weeks. I’ve converted most bank statements. I’ve converted most bills. I’ve converted all my invoicing (including those that receive snail mail versions). I’ve unsubscribed from a few publications, and I’ve suspended three magazines.

Every single piece of mail that I have received in the last six weeks I have processed. Can I go paperless with this? Can I unsubscribe from it? Will it go directly in the trash?

For bank statements and bills, it is generally easy enough to get sent paperless statements. For generating invoices via email and snail mail, and receiving payments via Paypal and credit card, I use Freshbooks. For magazines I subscribe to, I have logged in and suspended publication until March 1, 2013 – two weeks prior I have a task reminder to extend that if need be.

In some instances, you can’t go paperless. Health insurance companies still send fat recycled-paper benefit packages. Clients still send 1099’s. The Wall St. Journal sends an invoice that I never asked for and will never pay. AAA insists that I enjoy Westways.

I’ll be employing a friend to check in on my mail once or twice a week. I’ve created a shared list online, where everything that might come in to my physical address is either NOTIFY, HOLD or TRASH. And God willing, DEPOSIT.

If its NOTIFY, my friend may scan in a doc, or hold it up to a webcam. If its HOLD, it goes in a pile to be filed away when I next return to Ojai. TRASH goes in the circular file.

So far its working. I get paperless bank and credit card statements and immediately update Quickbooks. I back up Quickbooks and the statements to Dropbox. I’m on top if it, for now. Next up, can I lower my cost of living, start paying off debt on the road?